Monday, October 15, 2012

Outside again on Saturday night (13th Oct.). Quite a chilly one and good clear skies although I did have some slight light pollution - light hitting low cloud that shows-up in the photo.
Taken around 21:00 looking due east using camera only.
M45 (Pleiades) to top right of frame, Auriga to the left, Taurus to the right (the bright orange star is Aldebaran) and Jupiter is the bright one in the centre.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

So, as the owls hooted I took my first foray into the October night and pointed my camera and scope skywards and what a delight it was!
I always love this time of year - a chill in the air, you can almost smell the snow and wood burning fires to boot - great!
Left we have "The Moon" taken with my 2.5in Petzval at Prime Focus (520mm ISO 200 1/250sec). Notice there is no colour aberration at all! - these are great scopes. You can also see the "roughness" of the mountains on the circumference.

Right we have my first time lapse photo. It is a collection of 24 stacked images (done using Registax) and finished off in Paint.NET. The "jitteryness" is caused by each single exposure not being long enough. Each frame was taken using a fixed lens (35mm) at f/1.8 ISO200 15sec. This really needs to be 30sec and may be a higher ISO - say ISO400. You get the general idea. I kept the chimney pot for reference but it also gives the image some depth of field.

Other highlights of the evening were:
Jupiter - two cloud bands clearly visible with it's four Galilaean moons.
Auriga - a new constellation for me. This really stood out as I looked North-East.
Four meteorites - one really bright to my West at around 21:00.

These images are some of my best and I hope to have much improved ones over time.
I am seeing more and more each time I go out. I have been an amateur astronomer for some years now, but I am constantly amazed by how much new stuff I am seeing.